"Think!" Sherlock admonished.
"I'm thinking," Mycroft snapped back.
"Think harder! As per the instructions!"
John watched the argument, removed, standing near the wall next to the door going into the suite's bedroom. Mycroft was holding Sherlock's phone, looking down at the photo. It was the only time John had ever seen Mycroft Holmes look shaken about anything, when he'd first looked down at the picture. He'd smoothed over his expression expertly, but it had taken a long moment, and there was still a remnant in his eyes. John crossed his arms – he was growing less and less happy by the minute with this entire situation. Whoever had David was not going to be immediately forthcoming.
Were they stalling for time, or playing with Mycroft? Would someone able to kidnap the son of two accomplished secret agents really need to stall for time?
"There isn't enough information, Sherlock," Mycroft said, passing the phone back.
"Keep it," Sherlock retorted. "They aren't interested in dealing with me."
"Then why call you in the first place?" Mycroft asked and John didn't miss the hint of weariness that slipped in there. Was he actually feeling guilty? Was he capable of feeling guilty? John wouldn't have believed it, had he not been seeing it.
"To prove they're in charge," Sherlock said simply. "I suggest you accept that, because they are, at the moment."
Mycroft's glare brightened for a second and John wondered darkly if his husband was actually enjoying this, this brief power he had over Mycroft. He hoped not, but he wouldn't put it past Sherlock, even if it was just a touch. Sibling rivalry between these two was dicier than most, and John found himself wishing he had a combat helmet and kit and a trench in which to hole himself up. If it really came to blows between Mycroft and Sherlock, it wasn't going to be slinging accusations about who was the favoured child or dragging up ghosts of old resentments. It would be an all out battle, made worse by the situation last year.
John suddenly regretted ever agreeing to come. He did not want to get caught in this kind of crossfire, especially given what Mycroft could do to them if Sherlock goaded him too much.
"You need to call David's mother," John put in, taking a single step forward so that he was closer to both brothers, but still out their range. Both pairs of grey eyes shifted to him. "Look, you cannot keep her in the dark about this. She's a former agent and this is her son. Whatever's going on, there's still the possibility that she's involved, too."
Mycroft gave him an appraising look, held it for a moment, then nodded. He fished out his mobile from the pocket of his suit jacket and John snagged Sherlock's wrist, dragging him back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind them.
"Hardly the time for this, John," Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow.
"Shut it, Sherlock," John retorted. "This is absolutely the wrong time to be antagonizing him."
"I'm not antagonizing anyone, John," Sherlock said with a sincere and innocent look that John knew full well was faked. John huffed, crossing his arms and shaking his head, a warning glare in his eyes.
"You are, and you're bloody well enjoying it. Wrong bloody time, Sherlock. Stop it."
"Am I to believe he's a concerned father worried about his missing son? I know my brother, John, and you heard him say quite plainly that he's only met David twice. He's not going to sit about moaning and crying and agonizing. He has limited investment in David at best."
"You're getting this all wrong," John snapped.
"Am I?" Sherlock said quickly, in an icy voice and John wished he'd phrased that differently. Sherlock hated being told he was wrong, even from John, even after all this time.
"I mean that this is not about David being Mycroft's son, not from his stand point, at any rate. Probably from the people who took him, yes, but no, you don't need to treat him like that. What you do need to treat him like is your very dangerous older brother who is a government agent who is now completely at the mercy of some unknown kidnappers. And you're here to witness it. Think about that, Sherlock. When was the last time you saw Mycroft in a corner?"
"Never have," Sherlock said shortly.
"Right. And I imagine in part because it happens less often than – I don't know, the tubes running a whole day without any delays. And he has to do this in front of his younger brother, on whom he's always kept tabs. He had to come ask you for help on this, Sherlock, and I'll bet the flat he knew that you'd find out about this."
Sherlock grimaced.
"Don't bet the flat, I like our flat."
"Just listen to me for once in your sodding life!" John snapped. "Now is really, really not the time to gloat! When we get home, you can gloat all you want, because believe me, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'd really prefer to get back to London with my head still attached to my shoulders. He's been quite good – for Mycroft – at leaving us be since last year, Sherlock. I'd very much like to keep it that way. Don't turn this into something he wants to pay you back for. At least, not in a bad way."
Sherlock considered John with a cool, displeased expression but his grey eyes were bright, flaring.
"Just listen to you for once in my sodding life?" he enquired.
John held up his hands placatingly.
"Yes, sorry, I should not have said that," he agreed.
"I do listen to you, John. All the time. Even if I don't do what you want. You should know that, by now. Or have you not been paying attention?"
"Sherlock, I am not turning this into a row about me and you. I want you to rein in on how you're treating Mycroft. Believe me, I know it's hard. But this isn't about either of you. It's about David, and finding him alive and well. Yes?"
Sherlock considered him a moment longer, expression almost impassive, but touched with anger around the edges, and John worried he may have gone too far. But then Sherlock gave a curt nod.
"Very well," he said stiffly. John let out a breath.
"Thank you," he said. "Just – I don't know. Try not to be Mycroft's younger brother?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"Believe me, John, I would enjoy that. Fine. I'll take your advice into consideration."
John gave him a look.
"All right, all right. I'll lay off."
"Good," John sighed. He could guess at how hard it was for Sherlock not to want to gloat, given that Mycroft had never been in this position with Sherlock, needing his brother to take a case personally close to him. He'd pinned Sherlock with dozens of personal things before, but had never been pinned himself, not in front of his baby brother. The main problem with Mycroft, John considered, is that he still viewed Sherlock exactly as that, as his baby brother, instead of an adult younger brother.
John wished this would be over soon – he had an inkling that it wouldn't be, but it would be welcome to get out of this situation. He wondered when he'd be allowed to sleep next. The bed looked inviting. In any other circumstance, he would have loved to curl up in it with Sherlock, and he was already starting to feel fatigue creeping around the edges of his brain, but shook it off.
"Best go back out," he said, nodding at the door. Sherlock pursed his lips in displeasure, but nodded, stepping back out into the sitting room.
Angela MacTaggart was not at all what John had been expecting. He'd been anticipating a torn and worried mother, which she was, without a doubt, but he'd not been anticipating as much the professional agent with a tight hold on her reactions, subsuming her emotions, as stormy as they must be, to the matter at hand. He was impressed and somewhat concerned – this kind of control must surely come at a price, particularly when the victim was her only child, a boy she'd had the sole responsibility of raising. John wondered how much she'd slept in the past three days – judging by the shadows limning her eyes, not much, if at all.
It was a bit strange to see her and Mycroft side by side for the first time, and realize that the missing child was their son, something they shared genetically if by no other means.
She was taller than he'd been expecting, despite all the photos he'd seen of her in her penthouse flat. She was eye to eye with John, which he was not unused to, being not at all tall himself, but it was still disconcerting to be the shortest in the room when one of the other inhabitants of the room was a woman. He was generally taller than most women he knew.
Angela's composure did falter, though, when Mycroft passed her Sherlock's phone with the picture of David and she had to sink into a chair, the image of the agent suddenly vanishing when faced with evidence that her son was at least alive. She stared at it, as if hungry for any detail, trying to reassure herself that he was all right, which he wasn't, not entirely, because he was cuffed and drugged. She read the text, then looked at Mycroft, who shook his head.
"Nothing more, not yet," he replied.
John wondered what kind of relationship they had now; if they'd been lovers and colleagues in the past, where they still friends? Did Mycroft have any friends? John supposed that if he did, they would be people like Angela, who moved in the same world, who understood its demands and nuances.
"Bastards," she whispered with feeling and handed the phone back to Mycroft. John watched Sherlock trace the movement with his eyes, then push himself to his feet and fetch a laptop, a notepad and a pen from the bedroom, settling the computer onto his knees, returning his focus to the screen, ignoring anything else. John felt awkward, because it was not as though there was anything to talk about, and Sherlock didn't seem interested in asking Angela about the crime scene. Of course, she hadn't arrived home until several hours after the kidnapping had occurred, and Sherlock had already gone through the scene and the file several times, so John knew his husband didn't think he could get any more information from her.
And what was there to say? She was a woman whose career had entailed dealing with these kinds of situations, facing more in a week than most people faced in a year, sometimes in a lifetime. Still, it was different it was one's own family.
The buzz of Sherlock's phone broke the tension and John felt a stab of relief, then a moment of fear that came from not knowing what would come next. Mycroft turned it on, putting it on speaker and laying it on the coffee table between them, and John saw Angela steel herself with remarkable skill, years of training backing up her reaction. Sherlock snapped the laptop shut and grabbed the notepad and pen from the table beside him, flipping the pad open, pen poised over the paper. It would be silent, John realized, whereas if he were typing, the click of the keys would be audible to whoever was on the other end.
"And we're all here now, aren't we? That's nice," an unaccented male voice said. Unaccented to John, he realized; the speaker was English or trained enough to pass off an English accent. He saw Angela's eyes snap – in the way of most highly educated and urban people, her Scottish accent was very faint, and John wondered if she'd picked it up more again since having retired. He'd run into this everywhere – all of the very well educated Americans and Canadians he'd known in Afghanistan sounded alike, no matter where they were from. When he'd been in medical school, he'd experienced the same thing. He wondered if Angela could hear something in the man's voice that they could not.
Sherlock snapped his gaze to Mycroft, asking with his eyes if his brother recognized the speaker, but Mycroft shook his head no.
"Interesting choice of investigators, Mister Holmes," the man continued, but Sherlock held up his hand against Mycroft answering. "Hello, detective, doctor."
"Good afternoon," Sherlock said coolly, jotting something down on his pad.
"Nothing from Doctor Watson?" the man enquired and John felt cold at the idea that they knew who he was. How had his life come to this, when so many secret organizations and shadowy people knew him? It was going to turn him to paranoia one of these days.
Sherlock gestured to John to say something.
"Hello," John said, feeling angry at being called upon like this, since he had nothing to do with this entire situation.
"How is London treating you, Doctor?" the man asked, casually, as if carrying on small talk with someone he knew. John thought rapidly – did he know this person? But from where? That was preposterous anyway; it's not as though he kept in contact with potential kidnappers. Nor did his voice sound in the least bit familiar.
"Keep talking," Sherlock mouthed to John. John swallowed and nodded.
"Fine," he said flatly. "In fact, I'd much prefer to be there right now than here."
The voice chuckled across the line, almost warmly, as if agreeing.
"And how's your shoulder?"
John cast another look at Sherlock, but his husband was furiously writing things down. He waved his left hand at John in a circular motion – keep going. John scowled, displeased and more than a little intimidated that they knew enough to ask about his old war injury.
"For the most part it doesn't bother me," he replied. "When the weather changes suddenly or if I sleep on it."
He met Mycroft's eyes and found Sherlock's brother watching him evenly, as if collecting more information of his own, and John felt a stab of anger. Angela was still watching the phone, as if something would appear from it, her expression intent, her hazel eyes focused. Once again, she'd subsumed her personal emotions, at least to just beneath the surface, and was concentrating on the situation as if it were not entirely her own.
"Great, glad to hear it," the caller said and Sherlock scribbled something furiously and held up the notepad. John leaned forward a bit and saw that he'd written 'American' on it.
"Take anything for it?" the man continued. John tried to hear any hint of an American accent, with which he was quite familiar, but could not.
"Generally not, no," he replied.
"You'd know best, I'm sure, being a doctor. And you, Detective Holmes? How's the leg?"
"Better than John's shoulder," Sherlock replied smoothly and quickly, as though he'd been anticipating the question or the conversation didn't bother him. John slid his eyes back to Mycroft, who was considering something furiously, no longer looking at John, but at the phone, as Angela was.
"And how is David?" Sherlock asked, and Angela's eyes snapped up but Sherlock ignored her, keeping his gaze focused on the notepad.
"Oh, well enough, thanks for asking," the caller replied. "At least for now."
"I don't suppose you'll tell us where he is?" Sherlock enquired coolly. John saw Angela's expression jump at that – hope that she immediately tried to pin down. She jerked when the line went dead and he felt his own stomach sink.
"Blast," Sherlock said, and Mycroft followed it up with a curse, his tone dark. "He's not the one in charge."
"Why not?" John asked.
"If he were, he'd make demands. And would likely not call us until he was ready to issue those demands. Someone is ordering him to string us along."
"It's working," Angela said, her voice tight and dark, like the calm tension that hung suspended in the air before a thunderstorm.
"Why American?" John asked.
"'Great' instead of 'brilliant'," Sherlock replied. "Not necessarily an indicator in and of itself, but his accent was slightly off in places. Barely. He's well trained."
At this, both Angela and Mycroft nodded. John wondered what they could hear that he hadn't, what minor change in inflection, what minute improper pronunciation of a probably a single word they'd picked up on.
It was suddenly intimidating to be sitting in the same room as the three of them. If they'd put their minds together, if they'd been able to work together, they could probably be running the world by now.
He wasn't entirely certain that wasn't the case for Mycroft and Angela.
Sherlock pushing himself to his feet cut through some of John's discomfort.
"I need to think," he announced. "John and I are going out for a stroll. You two stay here and do – whatever it is you do, I'm sure I don't want to know. If I need to reach you, I will call you from John's phone. Keep mine on in case he calls back, but he won't if not all of us are here."
"If you leave, you cannot have access to the computers," Mycroft pointed out and John fought the urge to roll his eyes.
"I do not need the computers, I need to think," Sherlock said, giving his brother a glare. "Which I cannot do with you sitting here being maddening. Also, it's unfair to drag John all the way here, only his second visit, you know, and not let him see the sights. Come, John," he said, slipping the notepad and pen into his suit jacket pocket. "Let's go."